Alliance challenges $34,000 fine for alleged Cuba violations

Alliance challenges $34,000 fine for alleged Cuba violations
By Robert Marus

Published September 8, 2006

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- The Alliance of Baptists has filed a formal
challenge to a Treasury Department fine for allegedly violating the
United States' economic embargo on Cuba.

Alliance officials sent the response Aug. 31 to the department's Office
of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, which monitors violations of the
embargo.

In July, OFAC officials informed Stan Hastey, the Alliance's executive
director, that the group would be fined $34,000 for violations of the
terms of the organization's travel license to Cuba. The agency alleged
that members of five church missions teams traveling under the license
between 2003 and 2005 violated the embargo by engaging in tourist
activities while in Cuba.

The Alliance disputes those allegations. Hastey said Sept. 8 that, of
the members of his board who responded to his e-mail inquiry about
whether to fight the fine, "no one dissented."

The Alliance, a fellowship of 117 moderate-to-progressive churches with
a $374,000 budget, has a longstanding missions partnership with the
Fraternity of Baptist Churches in Cuba. The partnership pairs local
Alliance congregations with counterpart Cuban churches.

Due to the U.S. embargo on Cuba's communist regime, religious groups
must use renewable travel permits to travel to the island nation for
religious activities. The permits are granted through OFAC.

More than a year ago, OFAC officials informed the Alliance of Baptists
that its license had been suspended pending the outcome of an
investigation into allegations that a group from an Alliance church in
Alabama had misused the license to visit Cuban tourist sites. Hastey
said OFAC did not inform him any further about the investigation's
progress. In the meantime, the original license expired.

The July 5 fine notice was the next official communication from OFAC to
the Alliance. It informed Hastey the group would be fined not only for
the alleged violations by the team from the Baptist Church of the
Covenant in Birmingham, but also for alleged violations by four other
Alliance churches. Those congregations are the First Baptist churches of
Washington, D.C.; Savannah, Ga.; and Greenville, S.C.; and Glendale
Baptist Church in Nashville.

The Alliance's response includes affidavits from the five churches
explaining their activities while in Cuba. OFAC regulations require that
teams operating under such licenses be engaged in a "program of
full-time religious activities."

Hastey has earlier said that some of the OFAC allegations are
misunderstandings. For instance, the agency faulted the Birmingham team
for staying in Varadero, a beach resort near Havana. But Hastey said the
group stayed there not to go to the beach but in a Presbyterian guest
house that was convenient to a nearby Baptist church the team was visiting.

Jim Somerville, pastor of Washington's First Baptist, said his
three-member team visited museums and markets in Havana on the
instruction of their hosts at the William Carey Baptist Church in
Havana. The two churches were forming a missions partnership.

"Yes, one day we went to Old Havana, partly because our host [the Cuban
church's pastor] said the best way you can partner with us is to learn
about the history and the customs and the culture of the Cuban people,"
Somerville said. He noted the pastor suggested visiting cultural
institutions and markets in Havana to "find out who we are."

Hastey said OFAC officials have not yet responded to the Alliance's
challenge of the fine, and that they have not given him a timeline for
responding. Should OFAC respond unfavorably, the next step is to ask for
an administrative hearing within the agency.

Hastey said the Alliance's board, scheduled to meet in suburban
Washington Sept. 14-15, will be discussing what to do next.

"If OFAC decides to go forward with a penalty, then I hope our board
will approve going forward with the administrative hearing. If we
receive an unfavorable decision at that point, then I don't know what we
will do," he said.

According to Hastey, the Alliance's only options would be to pay the
fine or to file a federal lawsuit challenging OFAC's decision.

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